Utah State Employee Identified in Immigration Hit List

By Jamilah King Jul 22, 2010

There’s finally a name in the case of Utah’s immigration hit list: Teresa Bassett.

A person familiar with the case identified Bassett as a computer specialist in the Utah Department of Workforce Services and said she’s responsible for releasing a hit list of 1,300 suspected undocumented immigrants to officials at ICE and media outlets last week.

So far officials haven’t confirmed that Bassett is a person responsible for the list, but earlier this week it was reported that one Utah state employee had already been fired because of the scandal and another termination was pending. The investigation has since widened to eight additional state employees and those names have yet to be released publicly.

The 29-page list of of 1,300 people with Latino surnames was released to media outlets last week and accompanied by a letter from "Concerned Citizens of the United States" demanding the immediate deportation of everyone included.

Local activists in the Latino community have called the list an act of terrorism and said the state’s increasingly hostile anti-immigrant climate is at least partially responsible. Utah’s one of a growing number of states considering copycat legislation similar to Arizona’s SB 1070, which is set to make it a state crime to be undocumented in Arizona.